Cecilie Friis

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Primary fields of research

My core research interest lies in understanding how global structures and processes interact with local social and environmental conditions to shape, threaten and potentially create new opportunities for sustainable use of land, local people’s livelihoods and rural development.

A main objective in my research is therefore to advance – theoretically, methodologically and empirically – our ability to capture, understand and intervene in the complex globalisation processes that shape inequalities in and un/sustainable transformations of contemporary land systems.

I address this objective through critical theoretical engagement at the intersection of human geography, land system science and agrarian change studies combined with in-depth empirical research using a portfolio of qualitative ethnographic methods. My main fieldwork experience is from Southeast Asia, primarily Laos.

I strongly believe in collaborative and interdisciplinary research as the only path to create knowledge on and for a more sustainable future, and I am always looking for new collaborations with likeminded people.

Current and recent research projects

• Tracing sustainability narratives in complex agri-food production systems: The case of maize-poultry trade between Thailand and the EU (Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration Fellowships, 2020-2022)

• Land use change in a globalised world. Exploring the relevance of the telecoupling framework in the case of banana plantation expansion in northern Laos (2014-2017)

Networks and collaborations

I currently co-coordinate the Global Land Programme Working Group for Telecoupling Research together with Dr. Julie Zähringer, Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern.

I also contribute to the European Training Network COUPLED, Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use

Teaching

I'm course responsible for the BSc course "Land-use change in a Global Perspectiv", and contributes to a number of other courses in the BSc in Geography including "Human and Physical Geogaphy", "Globalisation & Spatial Change in the Global South" and "Human geography field course".

I'm also teaching on the course "Climate Change: an Interdisciplinary Challenge" in the interdisciplinary MSc in Climate Change. 

In addition, I contribute to a PhD course in qualitative methods and research design at the Dept. for Geosciences and Natural Resource Management